A Season of Change: Summer
by ChimericalParoxysm
Summary: Remus hates the summertime, but maybe Sirius can change that.


A/N: Written in response to Rosalie'sRevenge's Four Seasons Competition. This is for the Summer prompt, with Remus and Sirius as the characters :)

* * *

Remus had always hated summer. Not quite to the extent that he spent all year dreading it, but very, _very_ close. Ever since he'd been bitten, the season had emerged each year as a source of torture. The heat weighed down on him as his condition wearied him, and it further emphasized the scents he got cyclically more sensitive to. He often spent weeks of his summers hiding in his room under cooling charms, emerging only to use the loo and to perform his ablutions. Once he started school, summers were even worse. Leaving his friends was, on its own, enough to make his summers awful. His parents loved him, of course, but a distance had long grown between them—a barrier of pity, guilt, and resentment, which neither party knew how to breech—and his summers were lonely.

This summer was going to be particularly awful. The wolf inside him revelled during the summer. Something in the air made his animal side stronger, friskier, more aggressive, and this was the source of the worst of his injuries and the deepest of his exhaustions. It had always been frustrating, going from Hogwarts where he had reign over an entire abandoned house, to home where he was chained in the basement, but now… Now that he'd recklessly spent the full moons out in the open—beneath the moon and the stars and the swaying treetops—Remus could hardly bear to think about his upcoming transformation.

It was dim in the basement, and dark, but it was also cooler than the rest of the house. The quiet seemed deep, impenetrable, oppressive. The foundation of the house was stone and condensation was dripping—oozing—over the rough surfaces of the walls. The floor was concrete, hard and unforgiving as he knew, only too well, though it had been his mother who washed his blood from it time and time again. Remus was perched on the third-from-bottom stair, his eyes fixed in a blank stare upon the slightly rusted manacles in the floor. He was trying, desperately hard, to resign himself to them. Tomorrow was the full moon, and the knowledge turned his blood to frigid sludge.

The door opened at the top of the narrow stairway and Remus started.

"You've an owl, dear," his mother said awkwardly, never sure how to speak with him. He could remember being very small, laying in bed as she read him stories. He remembered trips to the nearby Muggle park. He remembered playing and laughing, hugs and kisses, "I love yous," and moments worth cherishing. And then he remembered being bitten, and everything had changed.

He dragged his eyes from his concrete and iron fate. "Thanks, Mum."

He didn't move for a moment, pausing to collect his strength, and trying to find impetus to move. When he finally had, he found the brief letter on the kitchen table.

.

_Surely you didn't think you could abandon us on the full moon, you dog, you!_

_**I concur, truly indecent of you! (And you're the dog, Sirius…)**_

_We'll be there to get you this evening, be ready! (And do shut up, Prongs)_

.

A smile broke over Remus' face at Sirius' thoughtfulness—he knew it was him; James was far too self-absorbed to have considered it—and then washed away as his heart sank. There was no way his parents would let him leave at a full moon. They'd been reluctant enough to send him to Hogwarts, even with Dumbledore's personal assurances that everything would be just fine. A return owl would never reach them in time, so he supposed he'd just have to wait until Sirius and James showed up and tell them he was sorry.

It was a dejected werewolf that slumped out onto the porch. When his mother came out once, about an later, to tentatively offer him some lemonade, he forced a smile onto his face and assented, unable to face her disappointment. Her smile told of her self-consciousness—_around her own son_, Remus thought bitterly—but it was better than watching her face fall at an unsuccessful attempt to connect. He was still nursing the near-full glass when his friends showed up astride broomsticks.

"Why, if it isn't our favourite werewolf!"

"Why it is, indeed, Padfoot, my friend! And looking morose if ever a morose I saw!"

Remus rolled his eyes. "Hey guys."

"You're not packed," Sirius pointed out.

"Oh, really?" He sighed, belying the light-hearted sarcasm. "I can't go," he continued reluctantly. "There's no way they'd let me."

"Whyever _shouldn't_ you go to Hogwarts for the full moon?" James protested in a stage voice.

"I can't imagine your parents would say _no_! Surely they'd see that it's better than being chained up in a basement!"

Remus narrowed his eyes. They were clearly proposing that he _lie_. To his _parents_. He opened his mouth to protest.

"Dumbledore said you could go back to Hogwarts for your—for the full moon?" His father's hopeful voice drifted from the doorway behind him.

He sighed, preparing himself to confess the truth. "Of course he did! Remmy didn't tell you?" Sirius' voice was perfectly incredulous, and Remus snapped his mouth shut. What was he supposed to do now? His mind was rushing through the morality of the situation. Did he lie to his parents, or reveal his friends' dishonesty?

James stepped forward, with all his pureblood confidence and grace. "We thought he might like to spend the night at my place, sir, and then we can get him to Hogwarts tomorrow. Take his mind off it all, you know?"

Remus cringed at the sincerity in his tone, but his heart filled with hope. His father was looking at him flabbergasted. "You thought we'd say _no_?"

xXx

The next morning Remus awoke in one of the Potters' guest rooms. He felt awful. _"You thought we'd say _no_?"_ The words echoed in his mind. He _knew_ his father had only meant that he didn't want to get in the way of his happiness, but there was this cruel whisper in the back of Remus' mind that made him wonder whether his father wasn't just relieved that he'd be werewolf-free for the full moon. He shook his head, firmly reminding himself that his parents loved him, no matter how much distance, physical or otherwise, lay between them. His conscience was still nagging at him, too, mostly just because he couldn't fully bring himself to regret that his friends had told such a falsehood. James appeared to have omitted his werewolf status from his own parents' confidence, because they didn't seem at all concerned about the approaching full moon.

This became much clearer as he slipped into his seat at lunchtime. "Remus, dear," Mrs. Potter said with concern, "You don't look terribly well. How are you feeling?"

"Oh, I'm alright Mrs. Potter. Just feeling a little under the weather."

She narrowed her eyes at him a moment and then shrugged. "Well, I suppose the fresh air this evening will help."

Remus froze, panicked, but James cut in smoothly, tossing a wink in his direction. "Yep! Camping is _just_ what the Mediwizard ordered."

They set up camp directly after lunch, pitching their tent out in the woods at the edge of the Potters' property. "Where's Peter?"

James and Sirius exchanged a look and shrugged. "No clue," James said.

"We invited the bugger, but he said he was busy."

"He's been a little strange lately," Remus mused.

The other two Marauders nodded pensively for a moment, then Sirius shouted, "I call dibs on lighting the fire!" and dashed off into the forest, presumably to gather wood for said fire.

"Bloody hell you are! My house, _my_ fire!" James leaped after him.

"Not your house, Jamesie-poo! We're in the _wilderness_ now!" came Sirius' reply.

Remus chuckled, thinking that maybe summer wouldn't be so bad anymore, and started after them. "Ay, here there be monsters!"


End file.
